A place to hang your apron and catch a glimpse of country life

My Free Cabinet and Some Elbow Grease

When I spotted this cabinet sitting beside the road with a free sign on it, I immediately scarfed it up. I knew with a little elbow grease, along with some help from my awesome hubby (who is an excellent carpenter), I could transform this old cabinet from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.

As I loaded the cabinet into our truck I noticed it was lacking knobs and needed a pretty trim. I also noted it would need a little wood putty and a new paint job to do it justice.

At first, I wasn’t actually sure what I would use this cabinet for. But when I got it home I realized this would work perfectly to hold all of my blogging and photo props, along with my ever-growing quantity of baking supplies.

I spent a good share of time stripping the cabinet to see what kind of wood was under the old paint. Since I wasn’t sure if I wanted re-finish or repaint the cabinet I decided stripping it was necessary. I knew the type and condition of the wood underneath the old paint would lead me in the right direction. Once the paint stripping was well under way, I concluded painting the cabinet was the best option. The wood was nothing fancy; mostly pine and plywood. Unfortunately, there was no pretty oak, walnut, or cherry to re-finish.

I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to add some trim to the drawers and bottom doors of the cabinet to make it more aesthetically appealing. A trip to our local Home Depot yielded just the trim I had in mind. The best part; the molding cost less than ten dollars.

This is where my carpenter came into play. He cut and installed all of the molding for me, along with replacing the bottom in a drawer that we found to be falling out.

I filled all of the tiny holes with wood putty, did some heavy sanding, taped off the glass doors, and finally the cabinet was ready to repaint.

Thankfully, hubby has a paint sprayer and agreed to help me paint the cabinet too. A sprayer gives used furniture a much more professional looking finish than a brush or roller does. I mixed two open cans of paint that I had on hand together to create the color I was looking for. This saved me the expense of buying paint for it too.

I used a black spray paint to repaint the original hinges that I had salvaged, and I painted some knobs that I had left over from another project black also.

To complete the project, we put the doors back on, and added the knobs to the doors and drawers.

All I have to do now is finish filling the cabinet. I suspect that won’t take me very long at all.

Would you drive by a free cabinet sitting beside the road without stopping? Or, would you stop and load it in your vehicle?

We LOVE finding things on the side of the road. Ryan just picked up a bed frame on Saturday. But I must say you did a far better job with this cabinet! So beautiful. Thank you for sharing, sweet friend. I hope you are having a happy Wednesday!

I love reading your blogs, because so often I learn something new. I never knew (or even thought about it) that you could put trim on doors and drawers. That gave this a whole different look! Now that I see the potential, I will keep my eyes peeled alongside the roads I travel. And I hope we are not on the motorcycle.